Евреи Кавказа: История и современность

Jewish community of eastern and northern Caucasia

Mountain Jews or Caucasus Jews, also known as Juhuro, Juvuro, Juhuri, Juwuri, Juhurim, Kavkazi Jews or Gorsky Jews ( Yehudey Kavkaz or יְהוּדֵי־הֶהָרִים Yehudey he Harim; Горские евреи, ), are Jews of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay Cherkessia, and Kabardino Balkaria. The Mountain Jews comprise Persian speaking Jewry along with the Jews of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The Mountain Jews are the descendants of Persian Jews from Iran, and fall within the Mizrachi category of Jews. Mountain Jews took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire as part of the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813. The forerunners of the Mountain Jewish community have inhabited Ancient Persia since the 5th century BCE. The language spoken by Mountain Jews, called Judeo Tat, is an ancient Southwest Iranian language which integrates many elements of Ancient Hebrew. It is believed that Mountain Jews reached Persia from Israel as early as the 8th century BCE. They continued to migrate east, settling in mountainous areas of the Caucasus. Mountain Jews survived numerous historical vicissitudes by settling in extremely remote and mountainous areas. They were known to be accomplished warriors and horseback riders. Mountain Jews are distinct from Georgian Jews of the Caucasus Mountains. The two groups are culturally differentiated: they speak different languages and have many differences in customs and culture.

Mountain Jews, or Jews of the Caucasus, have inhabited the Caucasus since the fifth century CE. Being the descendants of the Persian Jews of Iran, their migration from Persia proper to the Caucasus took place in the Sasanian era (224–651). Other sources attest that Mountain Jews were present in the region of Azerbaijan at least since 457 BCE. However, Mountain Jews only took shape as a community after Qajar Iran ceded the areas in which they lived to the Russian Empire per the Treaty of Gulistan of 1813. In addition, Y DNA testing of Mountain Jews has shown they have Y DNA haplotypes related to those of other Jewish communities. One valley, located 10 km south of Derbent, close to the shore of the Caspian Sea, was predominantly populated by Mountain Jews. Their Muslim neighbors called this area "Jewish Valley". The Jewish Valley grew to be a semi independent Jewish state, with its spiritual and political center located in its largest settlement of Aba Sava (1630–1800). In Chechen society, ethnic minorities residing in areas demographically dominated by Chechens have the option of forming a teip in order to properly participate in the developments of Chechen society such as making alliances and gaining representation in the Mekhk Khell, a supreme ethnonational council that is occasionally compared to a parliament. Teips of minority origin have also been made by ethnic Poles, Germans, Georgians, Armenians, Kumyks, Russians, Kalmyks, Circassians, Andis, Avars, Dargins, Laks, Persians, Arabs, Ukrainians and Nogais, with the German teip having been formed as recently as the 1940s when Germans in Siberian exile living among Chechens assimilated. In Russian, Qırmızı Qəsəbə was once called Еврейская Слобода (translit. Yevreyskaya Sloboda), "Jewish Village"; but during Soviet times it was renamed Красная Слобода (translit. Krasnaya Sloboda), "Red Village". In the 18th–19th centuries, Mountain Jews resettled from the highland to the coastal lowlands but carried the name "Mountain Jews" with them. In the villages (aouls), the Mountain Jews had settled in separate sections. In the lowland towns, they also lived in concentrated neighborhoods, but their dwellings did not differ from those of their neighbors. Mountain Jews retained the dress of the highlanders. They have continued to follow Jewish dietary laws and affirm their faith in family life. In 1902, The New York Times reported that clans of Jewish origin, who maintain many of the customs and the principal forms of religious worship of their ancestors, were discovered in the remote regions of the Eastern Caucasus.

By 1926, more than 85% of Mountain Jews in Dagestan were already classed as urban. Mountain Jews were mainly concentrated in the cities of Makhachkala, Buynaksk, Derbent, Nalchik and Grozny in North Caucasus; and Quba and Baku in Azerbaijan. In the Second World War, some Mountain Jews settlements in North Caucasus, including parts of their area in Kabardino Balkaria were occupied by the German Wehrmacht at the end of 1942. During this period, they killed several hundreds of Mountain Jews until the Germans retreated early 1943. On 19 August 1942, Germans killed 472 Mountain Jews near the village of Bogdanovka, and on September 20 the Germans killed 378 Jews in the village of Menzhinskoe. A total of some 1000–1500 Mountain Jews were murdered during the Holocaust by bullets. Many Mountain Jews survived, however, because German troops did not reach all their areas; in addition, attempts succeeded to convince local German authorities that this group were "religious" but not "racial" Jews. The Soviet Army's advances in the area brought the Nalchik community under its protection. The Mountain Jewish community of Nalchik was the largest Mountain Jewish community occupied by Nazis, Although the Nazis watched the village carefully, Rabbi Nachamil ben Hizkiyahu hid Sefer Torahs by burying them in a fake burial ceremony. The city was liberated a few months later. In 1944, the NKVD deported the entire Chechen populace that surrounded the Mountain Jews in Chechnya, and moved other ethnic groups into their homes; Mountain Jews mostly refused to take the homes of deported Chechens while there are some reports of deported Chechens entrusting their homes to Jews in order to keep them safe. During the First Chechen War, many Mountain Jews left due to the Russian invasion and indiscriminate bombardment of civilian population by the Russian military. Despite historically close relations between Jews and Chechens, many also suffered high rate of kidnappings and violence at the hands of armed ethnic Chechen gangs who ransomed their freedom to "Israel and the international Jewish community". Many Mountain Jews emigrated to Israel or the United States. Today, Qırmızı Qəsəbə in Azerbaijan remains the biggest settlement of Mountain Jews in the world, with the current population over 3,000.

While elsewhere in the Russian Empire, Jews were prohibited from owning land (excluding the Jews of Siberia and Central Asia), at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Mountain Jews owned land and were farmers and gardeners, growing mainly grain. Their oldest occupation was rice growing, but they also raised silkworms and cultivated tobacco and vineyards. Mountain Jews and their Christian Armenian neighbors were the main producers of wine, as Muslims were prohibited by their religion from producing or consuming alcohol. Judaism limited some types of meat consumption. Unlike their neighbors, the Jews raised few domestic animals, although tanning was their third most important economic activity after farming and gardening. At the end of the 19th century, 6% of Jews were engaged in this trade. Handicrafts and commerce were mostly practiced by Jews in towns. The Soviet authorities bound the Mountain Jews to collective farms, but allowed them to continue their traditional cultivation of grapes, tobacco, and vegetables; and making wine. In practical terms, the Jews are no longer isolated from other ethnic groups. With increasing urbanization and sovietization in progress, by the 1930s, a layer of intelligentsia began to form. By the late 1960s, academic professionals, such as pharmacists, medical doctors, and engineers, were common in the community. Mountain Jews worked in more professional positions than did Georgian Jews, though less than the Soviet Ashkenazi community, who were based in larger cities of Russia. A sizable number of Mountain Jews worked in the entertainment industry in Dagestan. The republic's dancing ensemble "Lezginka" was led by Tankho Israilov, a Mountain Jew, from 1958 to 1979.

Mountain Jews are not Sephardim (from the Iberian Peninsula) nor Ashkenazim (from Central Europe) but rather of Persian Jewish origin, and most of them follow Edot HaMizrach customs. Mountain Jews tenaciously held to their religion throughout the centuries, developing their own unique traditions and religious practices. Mountain Jewish traditions are infused with teachings of Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Mountain Jews have also developed and retained unique customs different from other Jews, such as govgil, an end of Passover picnic celebration involving the whole community. Mountain Jews have traditionally maintained a two tiered rabbinate, distinguishing between a rabbi and a dayan. "Rabbi" was a title given to religious leaders performing the functions of liturgical preachers (maggids) and cantors (hazzans) in synagogues ("nimaz"), teachers in Jewish schools (cheders), and shochets. The dayan was a chief rabbi of a town, presiding over beit dins and representing the highest religious authority for the town and nearby smaller settlements. Dayans were elected democratically by community leaders. The religious survival of the community was not without difficulties. In the prosperous days of the Jewish valley (roughly 1600 1800 CE), the spiritual center of Mountain Jews centered on the settlement of Aba Sava. In the early decades of the Soviet Union, the government took steps to suppress religion. Thus, in the 1930s, the Soviet Union closed synagogues belonging to Mountain Jews. The same procedures were implemented among other ethnicities and religions. Soviet authorities propagated the myth that Mountain Jews were not part of the world's Jewish people at all, but rather members of the Tat community that settled in the region. While Mountain Jews observed the rituals of circumcision, marriage and burial, as well as Jewish holidays, other precepts of Jewish faith were observed less carefully. Cases of intermarriage with Muslims in Azerbaijan or Dagestan were rare as both groups practice endogamy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Mountain Jews experienced a significant religious revival, with increasing religious observance by members of the younger generation.

The music of Mountain Jews is mostly based in the standard liturgy, for prayer and the celebration of holidays. Celebratory music played during weddings and similar events is typically upbeat with various instruments to add layers to the sound.